Page "Ben Iden Payne" Paragraph 2
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Benson company, a renown touring Shakespeare company ( formal name: Mr. and Mrs. R. F. Benson's Shakespearean and Old English Comedy Company.
Upon being interviewed by Fred Benson, he was introduced to Mrs. Benson ; he was astonished to see she was the actress who played Viola in the traveling production of Twelfth Night he had seen as a child.
After a four week trial engagement with Benson, Payne spent a season touring Britain with a much smaller company, Mademoiselle Gratienne.
He returned to Benson the next year, but this engagement was cut short when a fire at the Theatre Royal in Newcastle upon Tyne destroyed the company's stock of scenery and costumes.
Payne signed on with the touring tropue of Carlyon and Charlton, a " fit-up " company ( fit-up meaning they traveled with their own stage proscenium, stage curtains, lighting and scenery, which could be installed in any open hall and did not require a formal theater for performances .).
In 1902 he returned to Benson, where he worked both as an actor and an assistant stage manager, his first non-acting theatrical experience.
He toured with Benson and several other companies the next several years, performing Shakespeare in Jamaica with the Benson Company, participating in the first production ( staged by the Arthur Hare Company ) of The Importance of Being Earnest performed after the trial and imprisonment of Oscar Wilde, as well as working with the companies of Mr. and Mrs. A. B.
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